Salesforce.com Delivers Desk.com for Retail, Giving SMB Retailers a Competitive Advantage During the Peak Holiday Season

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the world's #1 CRM platform, today delivered Desk.com for Retail, giving SMB retailers a competitive advantage during the peak holiday season. Innovations in Desk.com for Retail include new pay-as-you-go pricing, reporting tools and e-commerce integrations to transform how retailers deliver a personalized service experience to every customer. Fast-growing retailers including BarkBox, Clockwise Tees and Herschel Supply are leveraging Desk.com, the all-in-one customer support app, to deliver amazing customer service.

Comments on the News:

• "Grey Thursday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday are high-volume, high-stakes opportunities for SMB retailers to be labeled as naughty or nice by their customers," said Leyla Seka, GM and SVP, Salesforce Desk.com. "With Desk.com for Retail, fast-growing digital retailers can now use customer service engagements as a huge opportunity to develop brand advocates for years to come."
• "As a subscription retail company for dog lovers, BarkBox aims to deliver a VIP experience to every customer–both dogs and their dog parents," said Danielle Maveal, general manager of Social Good, BarkBox. "With Desk.com for Retail, BarkBox makes the customer experience better for our dog loving subscribers and helps us achieve a 90-percent customer retention rate."

Desk.com for Retail Gives SMB Retailers a Competitive Advantage

Today's customers have exceptionally high service expectations—even more so during the holiday rush. In fact, customer service is so important to consumers that 32 percent of surveyed holiday shoppers will consider buying from an online retailer they had not purchased products from before if they offer good customer service, according to the Forrester Research, Inc. report "US Online Holiday Retail Forecast, 2013" Nov. 2013.

With Desk.com for Retail, SMB retailers can use customer service to gain a competitive advantage during peak holiday seasons and differentiate themselves from competitors by providing personalized service. Now any SMB retailer can leverage positive service engagements to build customer loyalty. The new Desk.com for Retail includes:

• Flex Agent Pricing—Smaller retailers who can't afford to hire additional support staff to handle peak seasons often need to redeploy employees from other parts of the organization. With Desk.com for Retail Flex Agent pricing, now companies can use pay-as-you-go pricing to easily redeploy employees from other parts of the business to support customer service during peak seasons. For example, Herschel Supply, a provider of high-quality bags and accessories, uses Flex Agent pricing to manage its holiday rush by ramping up its digital support team with employees from other departments.
• Business Insights Reporting—New advanced reporting in Business Insights gives SMB retailers a snapshot of which cases are coming in from partners like distributors and manufacturers, and allows retailers to make business decisions based on the data. For example, Herschel Supply uses report data to determine if it needs to increase its monthly backpack shipment to Nordstrom or add more iPad cases to its Apple shipment.
• Integration with Leading Retail Platforms—With new one-click integration to leading retail platforms such as Big Commerce and Shopify, Desk.com for Retail delivers a single, comprehensive view of the customer experience across both sales and customer service. Agents at Clockwise Tees, a custom apparel printing company, can toggle between systems that manage billing, inventory and order data to ensure every customer interaction is consistent. And, Desk.com now includes greater integration with Olark live chat so SMB retailers can view past and present Olark conversations as Desk.com cases.
• Customer Satisfaction Ratings—Additionally, Desk.com for Retail includes new customer satisfaction (CSAT) tools to help SMB retailers gather instant feedback on the customer service experience. For example, BarkBox can use CSAT data to reward agents that receive the highest ratings from customers.

Customer Service is the Competitive Advantage

More than 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first five years, according to the Small Business Administration. To avoid being amongst this statistic, companies must differentiate themselves by delivering exceptional customer service to outpace the competition and drive growth. In fact, this is the #1 priority for emerging businesses, according to a recent Desk.com customer survey.

Fast-growing retailers including BarkBox, Clockwise Tees and Herschel Supply are leveraging Desk.com, the all-in-one customer support app, to deliver amazing customer service. Desk.com empowers companies to instantly deliver service across all channels—email, web, phone, mobile and social. Customers on average experience a 42 percent faster response to customers, 38 percent increase in agent productivity, 27 percent decrease in support costs and 36 percent increase in customer satisfaction, according to a Desk.com commissioned customer survey. The full report, "Desk.com Customer Survey: Results & Analysis," is available here.

Desk.com Offers Free Flex Agent Hours

Desk.com's Flex Agent pricing allows fast-growing retailers to ramp-up support staff quickly and easily with pay-as-you-go hourly pricing. New customers that sign up for a Desk.com subscription by October 31, 2014 will receive 100 free Flex Agent hours to help prepare them for the holiday season. For more information on the free offer, please visit: http://bit.ly/1uaSsKt.

Pricing and Availability

• Salesforce Desk.com for Retail is generally available today with pricing starting at $30 per month, per agent.
• Desk.com Flex Agent Hours are generally available today with pricing starting at $1.75/agent/hour.
• For more information on the 100 free Desk.com Flex Agent hours offer, please visit: http://bit.ly/1uaSsKt.

About Salesforce Desk.com

Salesforce Desk.com, a division of salesforce.com, is the all-in-one customer support app for fast-growing companies.

About salesforce.com  

Salesforce.com is the world's largest provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software. For more information about salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

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